


Damned If I Do

by dropout_ninja



Series: If We Could Just Be What We Wanted [7]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Angst and Drama, Past Abuse, Politics, Stress, The Opposite Of Moving On, Unresolved Tension, and making poor decisions, both of them are assholes, breakdowns, poor decision making
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:02:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropout_ninja/pseuds/dropout_ninja
Summary: With Vos in his grip and a crown on his head, Starscream knows he has it all.Somehow, he can't avoid stumbling back towards the past despite this.
Series: If We Could Just Be What We Wanted [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761130
Comments: 22
Kudos: 13





	Damned If I Do

**Author's Note:**

> CW for emotional abuse, alcohol abuse, and robo-cussing. And bad decisions all around.  
> This is placed nearly five years after the end of IICJKWYW. Without reading that first, it may be difficult to follow this fic. If you came from there, welcome once again to the chaos-train!  
> Some references ahead to the IDW 2005’s MTMTE run, mainly in Megatron’s characterization (specifically, his avoidance of ‘habits’, which is a line of thought straight from the comic). Title is a reference to the Alan Parsons Project song of the same name. While that’s explicitly stated to be a romantic song and the dynamic here is left ambiguous, the mood of it was starkly fitting to TFP Starscream’s inability to leave the decepticon cause for longer than ten or so episodes before he walks right back.

_/You haven't left me a mind of my own_

_it's got such a hold on me_

_I don't think I could ever be free/_

* * *

There was an appointment that cycle.

As winglord, he dealt with many appointments. All those other important leaders of Cybertron and many unimportant plebeians came to him for his consent and permissions on the regular. There were almost enough visits to exhaust him from it all. Almost. Starscream could never tire from the thrill of feeling so totally, completely, relied upon. 

There were no others that ranked higher than him now. As a sovereign country, Vos stood on its own. It took a portion of Cybertron and so it took Vos's consent to make any extraplanetary treaties and many other more domestic policies. The leaders of Cybertron had to come to him to ask for his sign off on their hopes. The temptation to say _no_ out of petty and the sheer ability to had arose for him more than once.

He sat at the top- not chosen for the part, not properly adored for it, but he sat there regardless and held no regrets. He finally, finally, sat where no others could lord over him.

Starscream tipped his gilded cube back and felt the remainder of the rich fuel slip from its gold sides. It seeped into his neural net and shivered within fuel lines with overenergized, soon-to-be-mindnumbing pleasure. 

Yes. No superiors. On the top. No one above him now. Equal standing with the other sovereign whole of Cybertron's leaders. 

The appointment he had that cycle did not leave him to feel as though that conviction were true. 

It had been- how long? he'd lost track. A stellar cycle, perhaps? Not long enough. Not fragging long enough. An insultingly long time. Besides, even in any of the other few times _he'd_ actually come to Vos for these political meetings, it had always been with Orion Pax. Never one on one. Never since the wake of the war's official end.

Primus, he was still so sober. 

It had been a too long/too short span of time and that really hardly mattered. What mattered was that that reprieve was done now, gone, hiatus finished. Only a matter of time before the run was broken and it was far too hard to know if it was anger and fear or some sort of relief that it had broken today. He had an appointment that cycle and it would not be Orion Pax meeting him this time.

**\---**

Less than a jour now. All the rest of the early cycle appointments had been cleared away days ago. There wasn't a chance that he wouldn't need that morning all to himself to steel and prepare. 

Steeling hadn't gone well. Or maybe it had gone beautifully. The high grade wasn't the original plan but damn if it was letting him feel _good_. 

That high grade had given him all the enthusiasm needed to for the second half of his morning.

Preparing was going wonderfully, if he could say so himself. It had involved playing with all the regalities he had ordered and demanded over the stellar cycles. A winglord needed to present as a regal, after all. There was no excuse for seeming sloppy. It gave opponents an edge up and Starscream was no idiot to let that happen. So here he was, admiring the figure in the mirror, looking at the regal strips of cape signifying his position. A position that was equally the highest on Cybertron. A Prime in name only and a Lord High Protector hardly outranked a winglord himself and Starscream wanted that fact evident visually.

He spun a bit, just a bit, on his heels and felt the material glide behind his motion. 

He'd chosen red for the day. Honestly, his first choice had been purple but Unicron had taken all the delight out of the former decepticon hallmark color. 

Besides. While the autobots had a red brand typically, the decepticons had almost all installed red optics. They matched their leader's. Starscream's old decepticon brand had matched those optics as well. It was the exact shade. The current fluttering mesh hanging between his wings was that same shade. 

He half expected that to be noticed.

A moment later and he'd crossed his room to find the vosian crown he'd designed. It flopped on his head and he'd laughed. High grade. What a delight. It made so many things funny.

He needed more. 

Styled up, ready on the outside. Amused but still too sober on the inside. Starscream made his way to the formal dispensary in the diplomat chambers to fill himself another cube. He caught his reflection on the glass when moving to toss it aside. 

It looked regal. Absolutely regal. Like a true winglord. Like the most powerful mech on Cybertron. 

He wondered if it would be enough.

He wondered if the visitor would notice just how regal he looked. 

Starscream so wanted to see that look of denial and slow acceptance that just oozed with _he had been right, he's a leader, he was right all along about himself-_

The glass was shoved away, but he found himself digging for another empty one. A gold rimmed cube. Very dignified. Too dignified. He should give the other a cube of Earth mud held in pottery. But of course he wouldn't. He feared the reaction far too much to make such an insult. 

The dignified cube was filled with rich high grade. Starscream swirled it around, smiling down at it. He had to smile. It was the only way to steel himself for what came next.

**\---**

They joined in his more private meeting hall. There was a long table sitting between the winglord's seat and those of his guests. At the moment, his seat went forgotten. The idea of fitting seated under the table top, legs trapped, across from today's visitor made something in his tanks roil uneasily. Considering the high grade he'd ingested, that seemed a fitting warning sign against tempting fate with choosing the uncomfortable.

The gold rimmed cube sat on the tabletop near the wall where he stood. It was an illusion of ease, to lounge against the wall there. It kept him from falling over. A win-win, as the humans would say. 

He remained in the spot even as the far doors opened and a guard admitted Cybertron's High Lord Protector. 

Starscream felt his spark strain and threaten to send him either in a dignified retreat or a retreat-turned-undignified-sprawl on the waxed floor below. 

Instead, he kept himself in place and gave a gracious wave to the chair at the end of the table. Megatron took it slowly and began a stiff explanation of the treaty he was bringing. Something about Carcer, a diplomatic rush, a bit of a political strain as it was. Starscream should have cared- he took his position as a leader of Cybertron very seriously- but the high grade made it all seem so inanely consequential. 

Perhaps his movements or the strain of his frame's fans as it ran too-hot from its overenergized state gave him away. Perhaps it was the lack of spiteful commentary on the carcerians. Either way, the datapad was set down and Megatron stared at where he stood critically.

Frag that criticism. Like he could be the judge of anything.

"You're drunk." 

Oh, wasn't he observant. Starscream tittered.

"I knew I had to see you today," he shot back. "I had to do something." 

That was probably a bit muddled. He'd just give his old master the benefit of the doubt and assume Megatron knew what he'd meant. 

The cube he'd brought with him was sitting on the surface. The seeker moved from the wall to push it over the table smoothly; he leaned back against that wall quickly after having moved the thing.

"Here-" he pointed at it. "That one's for you."

Pale gray optics (disgusting, he knew, but apparently the mech wanted to go all the way with his corpse aesthetic these days) looked down at it. Megatron's frown grew slightly. 

"No," the former warlord said. "I try to stay away from anything that could send me back into old...habits."

Well look at him. The oh-so-righteous fragger. 

"Habit?" Starscream smirked. It carved across his face like it had been cut there; a macabre, hysterical grin. "I was a habit, wasn't I?"

Megatron remained still. It made him want to rage. Made him want to throw the cube onto the giant so that glass broke and energon trickled all over those silver plates. Made him want to rip the mesh off his back and shred it because little good his gloating on his status had done if it failed to get any sort of rise from the other. 

"Is that the word you've reduced me to these days?" he continued. 

The optics wouldn't even land on him.

He hated it. He wanted to at least have his words and tone be acknowledged. Even in anger and blows, like the old days. Like their _habit_ went.

"Orion is on Earth investigating a message sent through a relic," Megatron spoke evenly. "The carcerians are insistent this deal be authorized now."

Unspoken in the middle was the phrase _Orion would have come here to deal with you otherwise._

Because Megatron was busy avoiding his _'old habits'._

**Frag him.**

"And you need my signature," Starscream deadpanned. Overcharged or not, he wasn't stupid.

The datapad was set flat on the counter near the ignored high grade cube. The winglord pushed himself off the wall and tried to keep himself upright while he walked over. It wasn't all that easy. Perhaps he was as drunk as he'd been accused of being. 

That had been the plan, after all. 

Megatron never moved from his spot. He was still there, close by, sitting over the datapad, when Starscream reached that side of the table. 

He wished it would have been slid to him. He wished he did not have to stand under this familiar shadow. 

At least not when it refused to acknowledge the familiarity. 

His signature was typed too-quick. His talons were jittering while they did the job. The high grade failed to take the edge off this proximity. 

As soon as he had done his part, Starscream stumbled back. One servo crashed against the wall to steady himself. His vision wavered. Only some of the reaction could be blamed on the high grade. 

He could still hear the other pick the datapad up and step away. 

He'd be able to hear that pedefall anywhere- even when it was not there.

"Cybertron thanks you," Megatron droned like the good little diplomatic toy they'd made him. 

That was it. 

_That_ was **_it_**.

Starscream tripped over to the visitor's end of the table to grab the high grade he'd chosen for the other and threw it at the empty doorway.

* * *

A cycle later and the memory of it disgusted him.

It had dredged up too much, for the one. He'd acted like an idiot, for another. An overenergized, sloppy, unimpressive idiot. That had, in the wake of it, bothered him far more than the reawakened scream for _something_ he was _out of_ , done with, free from. In that wake, he'd crafted one of the few messages ever sent to that mech after the war and sent the not-apology over the embarrassing debacle without thinking it over.

Then he sat still and watched his files in the fear that it would be responded to. They weren't supposed to talk. It was an unspoken agreement. They didn't talk. They didn't have to see each other anymore. They weren't even on the same team. 

What was he doing with this?

Starscream moved from the spot once the question started to pester him enough that he needed distraction. The watch for a responding file was drowned under work and preening for _better_ audiences. The message went unanswered.

He was happy here, wasn't he? He had power. He had fame. He had assassination attempts. 

Why the looking back, the offence over being ignored, when he had everything here?

He didn't have an answer that satisfied him so he ignored both those answers and the questions altogether.

The message went unreplied to. The silence was more relieving than a reply would have been; anything to avoid the words, spoken or written or otherwise, was relieving. And yet the silence was an insult he wished to rage against.

* * *

It was that more than anything that led to the lapse of judgement. The appointment of earlier could not have been avoided; Orion was gone and that treaty had needed signing. The fact was, he would have avoided it if he could have but he hadn't had a choice in the matter. _This_ had no such lack of responsibility. _This_ was all him. 

Did he know what he was doing?

Did he ever? 

-the thought was crushed under appalled esteem. 

After everything he had done to prepare for that appointment, his efforts, his show, had gone unnoted. He had expected something. A _Starscream, your useless frivolities cost our cause for nothing but fragile disappointments_. A _Starscream, I’m impressed; you show yourself as competent a leader here as you were my second._ An insult or a compliment. Both painful in their own right. Both so necessarily familiar, both somehow _wanted_. The latter mostly, but the former would at least strike up familiar chords of rage and self-pity that would press him on with the hope of someday earning either the mech's head on a pike or his praise. Not silence. Silence was a death sentence. It offered nothing.

He needed no offer. 

He was the winglord of Vos! He was pivotal, envied, pivotal...he did not need to return to the familiar but those old, what? habits? was that what the slagger called it? were not so easily broken.

And, like a catalyst, sitting across a table in a room alone with Megatron had brought it back to speeding, crushing, unavoidable crash. 

How could he blame himself for what he did now? For cancelling everything for the cycle and catching a transport (so much simpler than flying through a hundred safety checkpoints and besides he wanted his Vosian cape to avoid getting shredded by active turbines for now) to the City at the Well? For the nagging feeling that said it was far too easy to cancel the appointments of this life he had built himself because of the vindication his pride demanded?

Starscream never liked to blame himself, so he did not.

**\---**

After that accursedly slow exclusive rail finally reached its destination, Starscream had filled himself up with enough conviction to combust. It carried him regally out of the empty railcar, over the frontal pavilions, and into the grand halls of the capitol building. It carried him all the way to a smaller hall where he found the target of his ire working silently at something no doubt less important than Starscream's incoming hurricane. For just one moment, the seeker took in the sight of the former warlord working so passively. Reading a pad set on a desk while he stood in the front of it. He never had been one for sitting at desks. Even in the beginning, when his writings had truly taken off, it was an awkward sight to see, a domesticity that he did not belong with.

And then that moment of surprise at the passivity of the scene crashed down and left him with the reality that he was alone in a room with Megatron.

It felt starkly too real when sober.

Starscream almost spun around and left right then. 

Starscream had never tended to understand his limits enough for that option to truly be considered.

**\---**

The datapad on the desk went forgotten once his pedes began their noisy clip over. Not all the way. Oh frag no, that was laughable. He wasn't getting in reaching distance. 

He shouldn't be there.

Starscream shook it away. 

"My old-" a step; casual and confident and just ever so shaking "-beloved-" a sneer; only those stupid drones of the army viewed their warlord that way "-leader-" a walk pulled up short; and now a pose-

Wings thrown up (not dropping for the floor in submission and terror), back straightened (not hunched in subservience or the shrinking of a target), arms proud (and wasn't that something he'd still shown, back when the other parts of his pose were cowering? He was undeniably a creature of pride, just like his former leader)

"Are you busy?" he kept his smile plastered on.

 _Too busy for me?_ The silence and avoidance and apathy of their appointment answered yes.

"Wh-" Megatron looked past him in a surveyance of the room as he stepped back from the front of the desk. Oh, was that fluster? Now that was new. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe this new Megatron embarrassed himself often with that. It wasn't like Starscream had seen him often enough in the last five stellar cycles to know.

"I am working, yes-but- _Starscream_?" the end came out too close to a growl. His wings ached in a brief fight with his processor over dropping lower. "What are you doing here?"

What, was he not allowed out of his tower?

Was he some sparkling confined to his gilded cage?

He was the fragging winglord. He could do anything anywhere and that meant he could be here now.

"The last I checked," his expression slid wider, as if it wasn't fake enough at the start. "I'm allowed to come here in good grace whenever I please."

The seeker moved to inspecting his waxed talons. The light of the skylights above caught on the metal and flashed reflectively to the wall, himself, the silver mech too close to him. 

"And I felt the need to come here now," he continued easily.

There was no recognition there. If anything, it seemed to sail over the other mech's helm easily.

"Orion is on Earth..." Megatron repeated what he had said in their last visit, though with a noticeable confusion this time compared to his stiff droning of before. Was this conversation unexpected for him? Was this confrontation as a whole unexpected? Hah! With their history, how could it have be suspected without surprise? 

"I'm not here for _Orion_ ," Starscream sneered. "I see him often enough."

And that, judging by the single room he'd sought out first, left no room for guesswork. 

The confusion left and schooled into a stiffly neutral expression. Starscream caught sight of servo clenching and stomped down the fear that sight sparked.

"No." A single word that held so much power from that mech. But no- no, he didn't hold that power. He didn't get to decide anything anymore. Wasn't that what he was here to flaunt? Or, rather, was it his own desire to seek out the familiar, the comfort of a longtime companion, to rest in that shadow of routine while the stress of this new world wore off? The former seemed a much more dignified choice. 

"There are many others here to humor you-"

To _humor_ him. That sounded far more like the Megatron of old. That sounded like their _habit_.

"-and there are many commodities in the capital. You should find your way to them, Winglord."

If that's what he wanted, he'd have done it. He didn't need his servo held to find his way around. So, evidently, that was _not_ why he was here or it'd have been done already. 

"No," Starscream parroted and was more than pleased to hear the snide strength of his delivery. "The only one I want to humor me is you. We need to debrief on our recent meeting."

That unpleasant, embarrassing encounter.

It didn't seem that Megatron felt the same of it. He turned away completely and spoke over a spiked pauldron.

"I'm leaving you here. See yourself out."

Oh no, that was not how this was going. He didn't get to issue orders anymore. He didn't get to decide when conversations were over or not. That was all Starscream, all his, everything- his now, his, no one elses to control. 

"No- no, you are not-" he screeched and ran to catch up to the brisk departure of his target. The attempt to flee ended when the seeker planted himself in front of the path in all his raging minuscule force. It was only after the deed was done that he realized just how much in reaching distance he had stepped into. 

Slag. This was hardly going like he imagined it would.

"You don't get to run off!" he tried to continue his bluster despite how all control over the situation seemed to be reeling away. "I'm demanding you stay here!" 

That would have gotten him scrapped _before_.

At least he'd known what to expect before. Now, he had no precedent to predict the next reactions or words.

"Wingl...Starscream." Megatron dropped his helm to mutter. See, that? That wasn't right. That wasn't before. That was hardly precedented. "I tried to tell you. You have to leave. For both our sakes, you can't try to make the war's energon fresh once more."

A fancy, overly poetic way of telling him to forget the decepticons had ever happened. Hah. They'd been everything for nine million stellar cycles of war. The decepticons could not just be erased from his every moment. 

"Oh _m_ _aster_ ," Starscream said just to watch the unhappy flinch the word brought. "You say you don't function in my life and then you give me orders to stay away?"

Megatron had always been a contradicting hypocrite. He'd just never had the safety net to say it to anyone but those like Knock Out and other discontents away from Soundwave's audials. It was so delightful to have that freedom to say it all now. So delightfully hollow.

"I told you," Megatron nearly growled. "In the time that I spent dead, I lived a multitude of lives and moments. I lived through you. I know that...I saw that you need nothing more than a life away from me. That all beings do."

What a load of slag.

"That's nothing!" Starscream spat. "You think ignoring me is going to magic everything away? Is that all you got out of your 'enlightening' experience?"

"That is not-"

"I'm not sure why I ever listened to you about it, about Unicron, about it- I don't know why I stood down when you gave your horror story- because _obviously_ it wasn't real enough, detailed enough," the seeker interrupted guiltlessly. "Because here you think I can just ignore-"

Everything.

It all.

The decepticons, the strung hope, the gradual unveiling of how little he meant, the manipulations, the dependency.

Like frag would he say that.

"Go back to Vos and at least try," the other tried to step past where he was still standing in the pathway. It was only a half sparked attempt. If Megatron had really tried it, Starscream would likely be on the ground from the force of a shove. "Or go inhale all your high grade on your throne of glass-"

How dare he-

Should've expected it, he'd seen the disgust, the disappointment on that face when he'd stumbled around the meeting room overenergized-

"Either way, it's hardly my responsibility what you do in your own kingdom."

Because that was just it: just how the Unicron business worked, so far as Starscream saw. The overwhelming sense of responsibility over a million guilts that were easily wiped clean as soon as those reminders left his sight. It would never matter if they were rusting in a cavern or living a high life, so long as he couldn't see them. 

Maybe it was a misread. 

Maybe this was exactly what he should have expected from this venture.

"I can't ignore it," Starscream said, unable to vocalize everything _it_ encapsulated. "I can't."

He needed familiar.

Habits were the same brand as addictions.

Neither could just break because he was reprimanded about them.

"You made it so I can't."

It probably wasn't comprehensible for the fragger. Or maybe it was. Maybe he was sinking into a Unicron-esque pit of existential crisis. Starscream hoped he was.

"You have to go," the High Lord Protector said past whatever reaction he may have had. 

The seeker didn't move from his spot. Those fists clenched again. His obstinance was irritating the other.

A mistake. 

He would make far more before he eventually did offline.

"You tear yourself apart seeing me and I see myself tearing you apart-" Megatron's voice lifted, whether he knew it or not. "I won't put up with this reminder; get away from me and keep yourself safe. Seeing you- seeing me- it is a mistake that cannot be repeated."

Was that so?

The anger didn't get a full chance to grow. It was subdued under the horror of that voice raising, those servos lifting to gesticulate, those scars and dentae and claws-

Was the air spinning in here? Perhaps that was just his gyros, compensating for how his wings listed down down down.

"Do not seek me out again!" he finished in a pinnacle of volume. 

The seeker flinched back.

Oh how disgustingly familiar that was. The anger turned to fear, a flip of the mood, so easy it changed.

There was a poignant pause. 

"I..." Megatron started and the words ran dry, unfinished. 

_Yes, you,_ Starscream thought vindictively. _Always you._

Every damn time, it was back to that, back to him, back to the vorns as a decepticon, back to millennia of head games and pain and gain. A servo to strike, a servo to lift up; a servo ruined of its old shape by Unicron's leftover modifications, as if to taunt Starscream on everything old irreparably gone.

"You ought not to. For your sake. You..." Megatron waved without much passion. "-have thrived-” and wasn’t that a pride for him that just killed Starscream to hear? “-standing away from me. That is hardly a reason to return to my presence."

As much as he wanted to meet it with raging curses, there was no denying how uncomfortably true it was.

Why had he headed here? Why had he headed back? To brag about how his own security and importance kept him safe from needing to do so?

What a fragging contradiction.

He tried to straighten out from the position that yell had left him hunched into. He tried to flash his full height and wingspans and glory as a gloat for everything he had created for himself in the absence of this mech's leadership.

He tried, but bragging of his present state was a hollow movement when he had marched from his sovereign land to gain a taste of the past. 

"That's cute." The words came flat even with the overlaying sardonic tones. "Just out for my best interests, are you? Primus, I wish you'd just stayed dead."

The other met the death wishes with seamless speed. "A feeling shared."

But not really, did they? Neither wished it in full. Megatron had already told him stellar cycles before that he would do all in his power to keep from dying again out of the the fear of returning to Unicron's imprisoned antispark. Starscream had known for the entire span of this royal peacetime charade that his own desire to see this mech dead changed on the regular. It had for vorns. Megatron would leave for deep space. Starscream would bask in his absence and wish him to never return. The warlord would return and strip everything away for his own egotistical plan. The first lieutenant would fall into step with plots of subversion warring with the comfort of the familiar. There was little praise offered in the way of those mindless decepticon troops when he would sit at their head. Their praise went unerringly to their first master and they failed to see the truth of all Starscream offered them as a leader. If they would be so stale, then he would find his praise elsewhere. He had to. And there was but one decepticon in the high command that cared enough to offer it.

Primus, he fragging hated him. 

His balance felt shot. Perception of the room was unsteady. The doorway behind him provided a welcome relief to the vertigo.

A loop of thoughts ran over his processor again and again. The gilded doorway felt obtrusive on the plating of his wings. Megatron just stood there, too close, looking down at him. The fists were gone. The servos looked more ready to offer themselves over in aid against the stressors of the interaction. Like one had in the cortical psychic patch; like one had many times before it; enough times to make up for everything that should have driven him out of that army long before. 

Instead of reaching for him, the silver mech stayed still until Starscream pushed from the wall in embarrassed anger at the breakdown.

"Will you need assistance returning?" the other asked him as he stumbled past the site of failure. 

_Stop insulting me. Stop fragging insulting me._

Starscream didn't deign to honor the request with a response. The impolite attitude was something he had the power to flaunt to _anyone_ , anyone on this planet, anyone in this fragging galaxy, he was a lord, he was a king, he was allowed to flaunt that power to this one mech-

He'd dreamed it time enough in a hundred thousand vorns past. 

So why couldn't he dredge it up?

Why did a fantasy have to pale so much when made real? 

Why was he back here? _Why was he fragging back here?_

Still leaving that uneasy offer unresponded to, the seeker stormed from the hall to find an exit.

**\---**

The city visible from this capitol building wasn't golden. It had its shining domes, of course, but it was a cacophony of colors and metals and messes. At least Vos was beautiful. At least Vos was traditional. At least...

It really did not look unappealing. There was a life to it that the Golden Age had smothered. 

He did not visit Well City often. It was easier, more satisfying, to have the diplomats of that place crawl to him in Vos to ask for consent and permissions. Here, he was the diplomat. Here, he was the mech with royal ornaments and regal attitude that lost their royalty and regality outside of his land and seemed a source for isolation and laughter here. Not that he had heard laughter- he would gut open the first mech that uttered such a sound- but he felt it would happen in the minds of any who saw him standing out here aimlessly. His entrance to the capital had been a completely different matter. The pride and disgust and hope that had power every movement in had kept him shielded from noticing the sight he made. All he had known on his trip inland was that he was powerful, that others would gawk at him, that their envy would add to the pride with which he carried himself.

He felt ridiculous. It was not a desired feeling. 

It would no doubt wear off once he had cleared his mind. Returned to Vos. Basked therein at the site of his greatest single accomplishment.

Until then, Starscream didn't really wish to see anyone. To his advantage, the back pavilion of the capital had remained empty since his entry onto it. The entire place was far too quiet. The building was far more lively when Orion Pax was presiding. The mech and his common company- the now-vocal autobot scout from Earth, a surprisingly-not-dead Jazz returned from the grave of a faked death, that aft Ultra Magnus- did have a certain presence to them. Orion wasted all of his time trying to listen to everyone and that had made him the mech Starscream most often ran across when he did come. His old friend Jazz kept the entire building rigged to a music system that never let the silence grow overbearing. Wherever Megatron stood in the background, he did an adequate job being ignorable. 

It seemed that, in Orion's absence, the ignorable awkward of the place took over the silence of the walls. 

If there was one piece of gratitude on this all, it was that he was alone out here. No one else sat watching him. There was always something watching him in the decepticons. Soundwave, mainly. No doubt the fragger was still doing it now. The tabloids and cameras were always catching glimpses of him in Vos or elsewhere or the journey from one to the other. He rather made sure they caught a glimpse of him. There was nothing quite like admiring the latest celebrity picture of him plastered over some inane article. This hardly felt like a moment that he wanted to relive in tabloid pictures. If no one came to join him, he would be none the more upset.

As fate would have it, he was just going to be destined for upset that day. The heavy pedefall of another pech approached down the wide steps to the main floor of the outdoor pavilion. There was little he could do to keep away the discomfort that pedefall such as that elicited. Only a few mechs held a weight like that. He had never had easy experiences with any of those mechs.

Starscream shifted to walk forward. It wasn't in time to prevent the newcomer from entering his peripherals in all his horrid prehistoric glory. Fantastic. Diplomat to diplomat. What a fragging joke to call an animal- cunning (too cunning) or not- that title. In the bitter mood of the cycle, it seemed rather a joke regarding him as well. So much for his over blatant confidence. Primus, he should have saved the high grade for that cycle instead of the former one. 

"Starscream," the other political figure spoke first.

Even now, he seemed to forget that titles applied for more than just himself or his beloved Shockwave. It wasn't as if their brief time on Earth should've been an excuse for such familiarity. Really, Starscream expected well enough that the lack of appropriate address was some kind of disrespectful rebellion.

"Oh. It's you," he addressed in response because frag was he going to bother with names if Predaking didn't bother with titles.

He'd rather expected it to be the mech. Something to do with the clack of those claws on flooring. It was a different sound to the distinctive noise of Megatron's hooved pedes. What a disappointment. 

"I was asked to check on you," Predaking explained as if ignorant to everything hanging in the air. Most likely he was ignorant of it. Sometimes, Starscream felt as if he were the only cybertronian with any sort of realistic perception. 

"Were you?" the seeker hissed out into the air without looking at the predacon at his side. "Was this from the slaghead keeping house in there?"

One that, apparently, couldn't bother to come out here and deal with something that he'd rather have some passing diplomat do. How cowardly selfish.

Predaking gave a noise between a snort and a growl that made his spinal struts tense. "I would not argue with that designation," he answered.

So it _had_ been. 

"Tell him to frag off," Starscream sneered. 

It was the type of thing he could only imagine saying to Megatron through proxy. No matter the raging insults of his own mind, he fell into the same fearful self preservation the moment his l- former lord walked into the room.

"I have no desire to return to the presence of that mech," Predaking replied. It carried the usual bluster, dramatic hurt, blunt reference to a lab of dead clones. Starscream didn't care. He never cared for any pity parties but his own. "But," the predacon glanced his way and the height difference unwillingly reminded him of a different hulking mech's glance. "-you do look like-"

What, slag?

Not good enough to take back?

Better than anyone here in this scrapheap?

"-you are unwell. Did you need..."

For someone who claimed to have three lifetimes of philosophical worth, Predaking seemed ready to choose aimless waving gestures over words to finish the question.

Starscream's sneer curled to a place less of pride and more of the confusion this entire venture had let him fall lost inside.

"I need to leave." 

It sounded haughty enough. He was the winglord and his place was Vos. It was probably dying without his presence. 

_I need to leave._

Now wasn't that the truth of it? It wasn't so simple as walking onto a transport or riding some damn predacon away from the City at the Well.

He _needed_ to leave, had always needed to, but that didn't mean he _could_.

**Author's Note:**

> Next up in this series will be a plotfic that will delve into the reasons for Orion’s absence here and a different turn of events for the RID season 1 finale. I’ll be offline wednesday/thursday, so that fic may have to wait to begin until the weekend. I’m excited to write it and I hope you all enjoy!


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